Tag Archives: wins and losses

Look no further for the reason behind nearly 10 years of letters...Ellen, her hubby Tim, and Reid.

Today’s post is the 100th since this blog debuted last January 27th. You’ll be spared any additional over-the-top celebration. Finally, 100 posts. One would think I’d run out of things to say.

For those of you who are regular visitors, thank you for sticking with me. You’ve seen a campaign about weekly letters that began as a way to momentarily occupy Ellen and Reid’s time in college. But since those carefree days, the tone, voice and demeanor of the letters has changed. Lighthearted reports on joys and home life have given way to stark realities of adult life; wins and losses, disappointments and heartaches, anxieties and doubts. As the kids have matured, so too has what they read.

I’d ask you for a few favors.

1) If you are a regular reader of these pages, keep doing so. Thank you.

2) If you know someone with college age children or children who have flown the parental coop, forward my URL to them. Perhaps they’ll find an outlet for their need to stay connected.

3) I’d like somehow to reach college advisors who wrestle with how to cope with or break the loneliness so many students feel. Maybe letters are one way to help. I’d like to reach professors of writing, too. But I don’t know how to reach the upper echelons of college administrators.

4) I struggle with overall promotion of this blog, so if you have ideas to spread the word about this blog, I’m all ears.

5) A wholesale revision of my book – the new title is under wraps – is underway. I’ll keep you posted on progress.

But thanks again for reading my thrice weekly foolishness. I believe wholeheartedly in the idea of written communication. Hopefully, if and when this reaches a 200th post, you’ll continue to agree with that assessment, too.

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Here is last week’s letter to Ellen and Reid.

August 23, 2010

Ellen/Reid: As with subtitles that assure viewers in films that show animals in danger (‘no fish were harmed during the creation of this fishing film’) that was precisely the end result during the course of this past weekend’s trip to westernmost North Carolina. Rather than dine on fresh rainbows or brookies, Felicia and I instead cooked limp pasta and ate at a funky Mexican place. It is more proof that I simply don’t know how to cast a fly. I whipped the water to a froth and the only fish that took the bait were apparently slow on the uptake or had some sort of fish-related learning disability. The big ones were underwater, laughing.

Saw one of the prettiest streams I’ve ever fished, and if I hadn’t been such a ham-handed klutz in terms of presentation of a fly, I might have actually caught something. The biggest fish was about 7 inches, hardly enough to keep. But it was an upgrade from the week before. At least the catch this weekend was measured in inches and not millimeters.

But it was still fun. That part of Carolina – almost to Georgia and not too far from Tennessee – is a world apart. Lots of trailers and the people really do live closely with the land. We saw some traps and such, and people fish for sustenance, at least in my view. The streams and rivers get worked pretty hard. Lots of rafting on the Nantahala (sp?) and a nice river. It rained hard the last night and that roiled the water beyond fishability.

Now it’s back to the job search. Sent many letters out last week to local real estate and other companies in the hopes of landing content-related freelance work which is in my wheelhouse. So many web sites are devoid of true consumer-oriented information. That might be where I could lend a hand. I do have my first client – an old friend of mine from Meredith days hired me to do content for he and his wife who are good producers for a real estate company out in the Bay Area of San Francisco. It won’t be much but the activity around it keeps me eager to do that sort of work. Who knows, perhaps I can parlay that into other work. We’ll see. Literally, there hasn’t been a single feeler from the scads of resumes sent out on so-called Internet job posting services. Honestly, it will be work in the trenches. We’ll see how it goes.

Bless Jane H__________’s heart, she is persistent in wanting me to join Dave and Bob F. for a guy’s golf weekend in Idaho in about three weeks time. It’s a celebration of sorts for Dave. She’s trying to pick up all the tab, but that’s not going to work for me. I’d feel too guilty about leaving my post just when I ought to be looking for paying work. It kills me not to see the guys again, especially after four years, but this just doesn’t feel like the time to be running off and having fun. Bob is really working me, too, but in a good way. His most recent text reminded me that the job search would still be there when I got back. I feel a little bit of a shift, but the guilt would just be overriding for me.

Have to get ready this week for a presentation to the Main Street shop owners in _______, South Carolina. The street is nearly absent of any business, and the owners appear to dicker about how to attract more business. What they need to do is spiff up the area and begin to do some group promotion. The tough part is the Main Street is not one you automatically drive on as you cruise through town. You have to purposefully turn onto it. It’s a highly spec job but who knows what it might lead to.

Hey, off to the coffee shop to plot my day’s activities. You guys be good, keep in touch, and let me know how your worlds are rotating.

What’s this blog about?

Every week for 15 years (typically on a Monday), I've written a letter to my two children Ellen and Reid (shown flanking Ellen's husband, Tim), tucked the single pages into two envelopes, affixed necessary postage, and plunked the letters into the nearest U.S. Postal Service mailbox.
I'm a big believer in the written word. If you gave letters a fair - and frequent - shot, you'd know what I mean.

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Dave, the dad who writes letters

I'm the one behind two totally unrelated blogs; one on 15 years of writing a weekly letter to my kids (plus other recipients), the other on my localized environmental responsibility. I'm a writer by trade and both endeavors are accepted practice for me. As for the letters, my adult children Ellen and Reid may have seen letters as corny at one point, but it's accepted practice for them, too, to find something in their mailbox other than bills and junk mail.
Email and texting don't do a lot for me for a lot of different reasons. Snail mail has its place in the communicative world so as long as they keep selling stamps, I'm buying.
As for 'Pick Up Your Path' and the environment, I advocate what citizens can do themselves to take a direct hand in their neighborhood environment. But Pick Up Your Path is also a general environmental blog. It may be largely about litter and trash, but both of those are just one element of the total environmental picture.